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Let's have a look at the sound card. The Siren Audio
I is based on the FM801 sound chip from ForteMedia, Inc., a silicon valley company that designs,
manufactures and markets multimedia communication solutions and has partnered
with the likes of Yamaha GX50 software wavetable synthesizer and Q-Sound Labs. This little board is of course of PCI
based. First off it has a 128 voice wavetable for those MIDI tunes that we don't
hear much of these days (luckily), as per usual the MIDI instruments are stored
on the host system and not on the audio board which makes for some pretty big
sound banks being possible.
Furthermore, the board is capable of delivering pretty sweet music through
one of it's many Ins and Outs. Talking Ins and Outs, there are Audio-Ins for
CD-ROM/DVD-Rom drives, Video-In and on the actual board and
Microphone-In, Line-In, Line-Out (front), Line-Out (rear), Center/Subwoofer-Out and a
standard G9 Mini-Din
connector for multi channel cables on the back plate and connected through a
cable a Joystick / MIDI Port. The Mini-Din outputs signals for Front Left /
Right, Rear Left / Right, Center speakers (5) and for a Subwoofer (1).Hey that
must be Dolby Digital 5.1 output ! Furthermore we can find a 4 pin SP/DIF output
to be found on the soundcard.
Installation
You unscrew the case and gently position it in an empty PCI slot, screw it in
there tight connect and install the the MIDI/Gamport cable, put the lid
back on and you're ready to boot. At boot-up Windows will detect the new
hardware and prompt for drivers, which are of course included on the pack-in CD.
Windows loads the drivers, detects the multiple features such as MIDI, Joystick
port and so on. After the Plug and Pray sequence you'll need to reboot and all
will work instantly.
In terms of API support, the Siren handles just
about everything but does it's calculations internally with the Q3D 2.0 API
which is then used to interpret DirectSound 3D, EAX and A3D commands. The fact
that makes this card so special is that it is compatible with a lot of sound
standards. Full SoundBlaster PRO compatibility, Qsound
2.0 (positional 3D), A3D
compliant, Creative
EAX compliant and of course its ability to decode and playback into Dolby
Digital AC-3 5.1 channels sound. I have tested the card on a lot of games, all
worked like a charm thanks to the full Windows Sound System compatibility and
the option to Accelerate sound (read: reduce CPU load) through DirectSound 3D
(DS3D).The board
also supports Direct Sound and has Legacy Dos support. Are there any people out
there that actually still use DOS ?? Seriously .. I could not find one single
game :)
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